The Communist Party of Britain has welcomed the results of last Sunday's referendum in Venezuela to create a Constituent Assembly under article 347 of that country's democratically adopted constitution.

The support from more than eight million electors indicates the continuing scale of popular backing for the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Despite the boycott of the referendum by some opposition parties and the orchestrated campaign of street violence, bombings and the assassination of election candidates and supporters, independent observers have verified that 41 per cent of all eligible electors went out to vote.

Britain's communists condemn the refusal of President Trump and the US administration to recognise the referendum result. Their decision to impose yet more sanctions will inflict further hardship on the people of Venezuela, who are already suffering the grave impact of domestic and external economic sabotage and the collapse of world oil prices.

The Communist Party also condemns the announcements from the president of the EU Parliament, Antonio Tajani, that the parliament would follow the US in refusing to recognise the results and that 'it is the will of the people of Venezuela to change the regime'.

CP general secretary Robert Griffiths urged people in Britain to lobby their MEPs to repudiate these statements.

'Mr Tajani, a member of disgraced ex-President Berlusconi's right-wing Forza Italia outfit, cannot be allowed to pass himself off as a representative of the peoples of Europe to back Donald Trump's programme of violent regime change in Caracas', Mr Griffiths declared.

'The elected government of Venezuela has made great strides in giving voice to the hitherto excluded and unrepresented, redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor - and it is our duty to defend it'.